


Not Leaving You

by Ellimac, FatalCookies



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 08:44:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6416782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellimac/pseuds/Ellimac, https://archiveofourown.org/users/FatalCookies/pseuds/FatalCookies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yellow Pearl tries to convince Blue Pearl to go join the rebellion while she has the chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one of this fic was written by Ellimac (Timelordsandkittens on Tumblr) and can be found [here.](http://timelordsandkittens.tumblr.com/post/141875470713/pearls-of-your-choice-original-or-canon-89)

“Go.”

Yellow Pearl can see– _anyone_  could see, if they were looking–that Blue Pearl wants to go. Anyone can see that that other Pearl, the renegade Pearl, has swept up her imagination. Anyone can see that she wants nothing more than to run, to leave Blue Diamond’s side and learn to fight alongside that Pearl.

It hurts more than it should. But Yellow Pearl refuses to let it show.

“Go,” she says again, more urgently this time. “You’ll never get another chance. If you don’t go now, you’ll be stuck here forever.”

But Blue Pearl shakes her head. Her hands, as always, are clasped in front of her chest. Yellow Pearl wants to grab her by the shoulders and shake her.

“What are you waiting for?” she hisses. “Nobody’s looking. The Diamonds are occupied. You have to go! I _know_  you want to!”

Blue Pearl grabs her wrist. Yellow Pearl looks at the point of contact, shocked. “What are you doing?”

Blue Pearl tugs, and Yellow Pearl understands. She wrenches her hand back.

“Are you crazy? I’m not going with you! Yellow Diamond needs me.”

Blue Pearl shakes her head again, and points to herself. _I_  need you.

“You don’t need me,” Yellow Pearl says, with more bitterness than she means to. “You’ll have _her_.”

Her. That renegade Pearl. The one who fights so well–who does what a Pearl was never meant to do.

Blue Pearl just looks at her for a moment, and Yellow Pearl wonders if she’s hurt her feelings. A part of her savagely thinks, _Good_. The rest of her twists up inside with guilt.

“I’m not going with you,” she says. “I can’t.”

Blue Pearl reaches out her hands slightly. _Please_.

Yellow Pearl shakes her head and takes a step back. “I’m not going.”

And Blue Pearl points to herself, at Yellow Pearl, and shakes her head. She takes her hand again, and tugs, not actually pulling her along, but making her meaning abundantly clear: I’m not leaving you behind.

Yellow Pearl swallows. The decision is already made, and she knows it, but that doesn’t make this any less difficult.

“Then neither of us is going,” she says flatly.

Blue Pearl drops her hand, and her shoulders droop briefly before she resumes her normal posture. Yellow Pearl turns away.

“You should go,” she mutters. “I know you won’t.”

Blue Pearl, of course, doesn’t say anything. Yellow Pearl waits for a few more seconds before leaving the room. She’s got to go somewhere no one will find her for a while. Not even Blue Pearl.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unconvinced, Blue Pearl stays behind.

These are busy times for the Diamonds, and as such, there is no shortage of occasion for them to exchange conversation. The _occasion_ is not the obstacle; it is that Yellow Pearl seems—and has been for some weeks, now—entirely disinclined to speak.

Rather, she seems entirely disinclined to speak _with her_.

(It is funny, in a somber sort of way. Yellow Pearl has often accused her of being a fool, but in fact, she understands—and she suspects Yellow Pearl knows that she understands—a great deal. She understands, for instance, that Yellow Pearl might well be agitated by Blue’s request that they flee. She understands that there is a part of Yellow Pearl that is likely irritated with her. And she understands, as well, that _she_  was the one who stood to lose in that exchange; who did lose; and she understands that Yellow Pearl knows that, too.

She understands that irritation and blame are not often focused, pointing things. They can be as diffuse as light particles, and behave in the same two-faced particle-wave manner.)

–

Blue Pearl harbors this quaint little idea of what could have been. She has never and will never speak, and she has often been quiet, but she has never once thought of herself as silent. Not really. 

She imagines the words _We are the Crystal Gems_  like a war cry, like a chime—she imagines brandishing a slender sword, one that her hands have no idea of how to wield—she imagines the swinging of it producing a chime of its own, and there are no words, but her actions and her postures, steadier and stronger than they ever have been—all of this _speaks_.

In all of these musings, she never stopped to picture where Yellow Pearl would stand. That was her mistake, she supposes; she reached for her hand without ever being able to imagine where she would go. Blue Pearl knows where she would stand, but if she cannot imagine a place for Yellow Pearl on the other side, then it seems silly, now, to have thought she could persuade her.

Perhaps it was silly, too, to ask.

–

(Guilt is a little like blame; and it, too, is a diffuse, light-like thing. Put through the right glass, you can separate out all the different wavelengths and make a big, messy thing look clean and distinct. You can find all hues and shades spread out before you, and you can point to the difference and call them different. 

But all of it is light. All of it is blame, and guilt. Guilt is yellow, and blue.)

–

They are left outside the Diamonds’ meeting rooms, perhaps with a hint of suspicion, given the developments of the terrifying renegade storming the planet at the side of Rose Quartz. Perhaps the Diamonds are learning to be more careful. There are little movements that sweep across the galaxies, from time to time. This one sings like a soft victory. 

Yellow Pearl holds herself stiffly, both forearms crossed firmly behind her back. Without looking, she says, “You should have gone when you had the chance.”

There is some truth to it. She probably should have. There would have been a place for her on the other side, and she would have stood there, valiant and proud at the side of the renegade who has seized so much of her imagination, and her admiration. She would have thrived. She feels this down to the very core of her.

But she thinks, suddenly, softly, that there cannot be room for her, alone. 

She smiles, and uncrosses her hands. She gestures at Yellow Pearl—who looks at her, thankfully at last looks at her—and she shakes her head. She opens up her palm, and taps one finger into it. She lifts another finger, and taps two. 

Yellow Pearl scoffs. “You can’t know that,” she hisses. “You can’t know you’ll _ever_ have another chance—”

Blue nods her head, once, firmly. The gesture seems to scold Yellow Pearl into penitent silence. She turns her head forward again, but this time, her chin is not set half so high. Her gaze falls to the floor across the way, but it is not a stubborn look, this time. This time, Blue Pearl knows, she’ll let herself see, if not just from the corners of her eyes.

And so Blue Pearl points, first to herself, then to Yellow Pearl. And then she smiles, and takes her hand. The tug she gives is gentle. Not going anywhere. Not yet. 

But when they go, it will be like this. It will be _they_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work was originally posted on tumblr, and can be found [here](http://fatalcookies.tumblr.com/post/141907302723/pearls-of-your-choice-original-or-canon-89).


End file.
